This
is one of Leonardo's least-known designs and he probably developed
it during his extensive studies and dissections of the human
body. The
robot is thought to have been designed just prior to the period
of the Last
Supper; this would put it at around 1495. It was probably
the first ever design for a humanoid robot, and if built, was
most certainly the first ever manufactured. The finished robot
drawings are among the some 14,000 pages of Leonardo's work
which remain lost to us, and experts have no indication that
this machine progressed beyond Leonardo's initial sketches.

It wasn't
actually until the 1950s that a professor from the University
of California suggested some of Leonardo's designs could be
for a robot. A further forty years passed before the components
of a system for automatically controlling limb movements was
identified among the sketches.

This
led the Florence-based Institute and Museum of the History of
Science to develop computer models designed to establish the
feasibility of Leonardo's sketches. These simulations clearly
confirmed that the drawings were for a mechanical robot.

It
is now obvious that Leonardo designed his robot to open and
close its jaw (which was anatomically correct) sit up, wave
its arms, and move its head. Though uncertainty exists about
sound it may used automated drums. The mechanical man was dressed
in a suit of armor from the late fifteenth century.

We
still do not know what device Leonardo planned to use to activate
his robot, but it was most likely water or weights.